Boeing 747-300

Four engines, one hump – but this one stretches far back, almost to the wing root, and there are no winglets on the wingtips. Then you are very likely looking at a Boeing 747-300, on an old slide, in a fellow spotter’s archive or, with a lot of luck, even still outdoors. The -300 was the first jumbo with the factory-built long upper deck and thus the link between the early Classic 747s and the hugely successful 747-400. Here you will learn how it came about, which airlines shaped it, how to tell it from its siblings and what became of the 81 aircraft built.

What is the Boeing 747-300?

The 747-300 is the last version of the first jumbo generation, which spotters today group together as the Classic 747: the 747-100, 747-200, 747SP and, of course, the -300. Its most important feature is the stretched upper deck: instead of the short hump right behind the cockpit, the structure extends about seven meters farther back. Depending on the seating, up to 69 passengers fit up there – significantly more than in the small upper deck of the predecessors, which was often used only as a lounge at first.

Boeing, on the other hand, largely carried over the fuselage length, wings and landing gear from the 747-200. The external dimensions stayed practically the same, at a good 70 meters in length and just under 60 meters of wingspan. Inside, Boeing swapped the tight spiral staircase to the upper deck for a straight staircase, which takes up less space on the main deck. The new, more aerodynamic shape of the hump also allowed a slightly higher cruise speed of Mach 0.85.

In the cockpit, by contrast, everything stayed the same: the -300 is flown by three crew, two pilots and a flight engineer, and has classic round-dial instruments. This is exactly where the 747-400 picked up a few years later – with a glass cockpit, a two-person crew, longer wings and winglets. But it took over the fuselage with the long upper deck directly from the -300.

From the SUD project to the 747-300

In the late 1970s, Boeing was looking for ways to fit more passengers into the jumbo without developing an entirely new aircraft. Options studied included a stretched fuselage and an upper deck running the full length. The manufacturer rejected both. What remained was the simplest solution: pulling the existing hump farther back.

The project initially ran under the name 747SUD – for “Stretched Upper Deck” – and for a while also as the 747-200 SUD and 747EUD (“Extended Upper Deck”). Only at the program launch did it get the designation 747-300. The impetus came from Swissair: in June 1980, the Swiss airline ordered the first aircraft, including Combis. In 1981, the French airline UTA followed as the second customer.

On October 5, 1982, the first 747-300 took off from Everett on its first flight. The first base-version aircraft went to UTA on March 1, 1983, and on March 23, 1983, Swissair became the first airline to put the type into scheduled service. That made the -300 right on time for the growth of long-haul travel in the 1980s – and yet only a stopgap, because Boeing officially launched the 747-400 as early as 1985.

The versions of the 747-300

At 81 aircraft, the -300 remained a small production run. Boeing offered it in three variants:

Version	Use	Special feature	Built
747-300	Long-haul, passengers	long upper deck, up to about 400 seats in three classes	56
747-300M	Combi: passengers and cargo on the main deck	large cargo door at the rear left	21
747-300SR	Short-haul in Japan	reinforced for many takeoffs, very dense seating	4

The 747-300M was popular with airlines that carried a lot of cargo on their long-haul routes. The rear part of the main deck could be loaded with pallets as needed, while passengers sat up front. Swissair, KLM and Sabena were among the Combi operators. The four 747-300SRs went to Japan Airlines, where they flew the busy domestic routes.

For engines, airlines could choose from three manufacturers: Pratt & Whitney JT9D, General Electric CF6 and Rolls-Royce RB211-524. You can find more about the engine makers on the pages for Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce.

How to recognize the 747-300

You recognize it as a jumbo right away. The trick is placing it correctly within the 747 family. Three looks are usually enough:

747-300 or converted 747-200?

This is the real puzzle. A 747-200 with a retrofitted upper deck has the same silhouette, the same wings and usually similar engines. Only the production list gives you certainty: from the registration you can find the customer code, such as 747-357 for Swissair or 747-338 for Qantas – the “3” in second place stands for the -300. If it says 747-2xx with the addition SUD, it is a conversion. How registrations are structured and how to look them up in databases is explained in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

For a compact overview of all the jumbo variants, see the article How to tell the Boeing 747-100 to 747-8 apart. If you are sorting old photos, you will find additional help in the guide Spotting vintage aircraft in the sky.

The operators: from Zurich to Sydney

The 747-300 was an aircraft for airlines with long, high-demand routes. Some of them shaped the image of the type in particular.

Swissair not only gave the starting signal but also flew the -300 and the Combi -300M on long-haul routes from Zurich for many years, until they were retired around the year 2000. Anyone standing at Zurich Airport back then regularly saw the jumbo with the Swiss cross and long upper deck.

UTA was the second customer and received the very first base-version aircraft in March 1983. The French private airline flew the 747-300 mainly to Africa and the Pacific; after the takeover by Air France in the early 1990s, its aircraft changed colors.

KLM bet on the long upper deck twice over: with new 747-300s – including Combis – and with older 747-200s that were converted to SUD. These jumbos flew from Amsterdam Schiphol until the early 2000s, and KLM today belongs to the Air France-KLM group.

Qantas put six 747-338s into service from November 1984. One of them, VH-EBU, wore the famous Aboriginal art livery “Nalanji Dreaming” – more on that in the article about art on aircraft. The aircraft flew into the 2000s.

Japan Airlines was one of the largest operators with 16 aircraft and used the -300 from 1983 to 2009, including the four short-haul -300SR jets.

Other airlines followed, including Saudia, South African Airways, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Korean Air, Air India and the Belgian airline Sabena, which took the last -300 built in September 1990. The Cathay jumbos were part of the picture of the legendary approach to Hong Kong – read about it in the article on Kai Tak.

Airline	Typical version	Note
Swissair	747-300, 747-300M	Launch customer, first scheduled service in 1983
UTA	747-300	first base-version aircraft delivered
KLM	747-300, 747-300M, 747-200 SUD	new -300s plus conversions
Qantas	747-300	six aircraft from 1984
Japan Airlines	747-300, 747-300SR	16 aircraft from 1983 to 2009
Sabena	747-300M	last -300 built (1990)

Second life: charter, cargo and final missions

When the big network airlines switched to the 747-400 and later to large twinjets in the 1990s and 2000s, many -300s found new roles. The Icelandic airline Air Atlanta Icelandic used former Swissair aircraft on wet lease, for example for Saudia or for British leisure airlines such as Excel Airways. Some jumbos were converted to freighters and flew with cargo airlines such as Southern Air or, briefly, Polar Air Cargo.

The history of the type also includes serious accidents. On August 6, 1997, a Korean Air 747-300 crashed on approach to Guam; 229 of the 254 people on board were killed. In March 2008, an Air Atlanta 747-300 flying on behalf of Saudia caught fire after landing in Dhaka and was written off; everyone on board was able to leave the aircraft.

The older the fleets grew, the clearer the drawback of the Classic cockpit became: three crew up front and four engines of an older design were hardly economical anymore compared with modern twinjets. Why four-engine jets are disappearing from the sky overall is explained in the article The end of the four-engine jets.

In the early 2020s, fleet overviews showed only a few aircraft still active, including one with Mahan Air in Iran and one in the service of the Saudi government. Whether these aircraft still fly regularly as of October 2026 cannot be said reliably. If you spot the code B743 in a flight tracker, it is a real rarity.

Where to see the long Classic upper deck today

Surviving genuine 747-300s are rare. Known examples include a former aircraft on a university campus in Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand and a former Pakistan International Airlines jumbo that was converted into a restaurant at Karachi airport. At least one more is parked in storage in the US. None of these is easily accessible to the public in Europe.

Still, there is a very good address for spotters from German-speaking countries: at Aviodrome Lelystad you will find the former KLM aircraft PH-BUK “Louis Blériot.” It was built in 1978 as a 747-206B and converted to the long upper deck about nine years later. It made its last flight in November 2003 and has belonged to the museum since 2004. From the outside it shows exactly the 747-300 profile, and you can even go inside. You will find information on visiting and photo opportunities at the spot Aviodrome at Lelystad Airport.

Place	What you see	Note
Aviodrome Lelystad (NL)	KLM 747-206B with SUD conversion, PH-BUK	walk-through, silhouette like the 747-300
Technik Museum Speyer (DE)	Lufthansa 747-230	short hump, good comparison with the -300
Ubon Ratchathani (TH)	genuine 747-300	exhibit at a university

If you want a direct comparison, combine Lelystad with the Technik Museum Speyer: there you will find a Lufthansa jumbo of the 747-230 version with a short upper deck. Keep the two side by side in your mind, and you will understand the difference forever. The overview Aviation museums in Germany presents more museums in the country.

Tips for your Classic jumbo archive

Most spotters meet the 747-300 today in archive photos, slides or at photo swap meets. A few basic rules help keep your collection tidy:

• Note the registration: Only that lets you reliably separate genuine -300s, SUD conversions and later freighters.
• Record the date of the photo: Many aircraft changed operators and liveries, and the date places the photo correctly.
• Look up the customer code: The number sequence 747-3xx confirms the version, and the last two characters name the original customer.
• Document liveries: Swissair lowercase titles, UTA colors or special liveries like Qantas’s are sought-after subjects today. The article Legendary airline liveries in history shows some of them.

For the full story of the jumbo – from the first flight in 1969 to the last delivery in 2023 – the article The history of the Boeing 747 is worth reading. And if you want to compare jumbo and superjumbo, check out the guide How to tell an A380 from a Boeing 747.

Conclusion

The Boeing 747-300 was never a bestseller, but it gave the jumbo its later face: the long hump that millions of people associate with the 747-400 first flew with Swissair and UTA. With only 81 aircraft built, three crew in the cockpit and service that mostly ended in the 2000s, it is a real rarity today – in photos as much as in museums.